


À la Nôtre

by catcorsair



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Aggression, Alcohol, Anger, Angst, Bad Decisions, Betrayal, Blood, Character Study, Conversations, Crying, Dark, Date Rape, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drunk Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Forced, Forced Oral, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Inappropriate Behavior, Loss of Control, Loss of Virginity, Love, Love/Hate, Masturbation, Non-Consensual, One Shot, Oral Sex, Pain, Psychological Horror, Rape, Regret, Relationship(s), Roughness, Sad, Self-Harm, Sexual Assault, Sexual Coercion, Sexual Content, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Violence, Slow Build, Slut Shaming, Smut, Submission, Taboo, Unrequited Lust, Verbal Humiliation, Victim Blaming, Virginity Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:42:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24593215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catcorsair/pseuds/catcorsair
Summary: Too many glasses of wine. An act, born of a moment of weakness. A night they both will regret.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 67
Kudos: 112
Collections: Darkfics for a Stormy Day





	À la Nôtre

**_À la Nôtre _ ** _by catcorsair_

_This story centers around a very graphic rape. Read at your own risk._

_**Please review :)** _

* * *

He always drank after dinner; only a glass of wine, or sometimes port, cradling the crystal in his long fingers as he sat by the fire. He was clearly not a man who could feel much ease in sitting still, and Christine imagined the drink must soothe him; or, perhaps, he only took up the nightly habit for something to do, for a means to pass so many lonely hours in his solitary empire beneath the Earth. Still, each time, as he filled his own glass at the small bar in the corner of the living room, he would turn to Christine and ask her to join him; and every time, casting her gaze to the floor, as the flush that always seemed to rise with any direct attention from him heated her face, she would shake her head and stammer _no._

Tonight, when he made his customary offering, Christine did not refuse.

“Really, my dear?” Erik mused, clearly diverted, as he pulled another glass from the cabinet with a languorous flourish of his skeleton's fingers, “this is a very welcome surprise.”

Christine blushed at his attention; it was simply a drink. Only one, and then to bed. Good girls knew better than to overindulge, for all that might result due to such a lapse. 

And Christine was a very good girl.

But dinner had been so pleasant this evening; for the first time since her Angel had brought her down below, the conversation was easy, the atmosphere relaxed. If not for the nagging truth, the constant shadow eclipsing so much kindness––of her kidnapping and subsequently, his indefinite denial of her return to her home above ground––she might have even allowed herself to call Erik's presence comforting. He was a hard man to become accustomed to––unlike any man she had ever known before, and therefore all the more difficult to grasp––and yet, the strange history they had already built together bound her to him. After her father's death, she had needed him, and so he came; for all his deceptions, all his tricks, Christine could never have forsaken him. 

He was still her Angel, after all.

“One drink is hardly something to remark upon,” Christine said shyly, attempting to sound composed. She preferred white, but he was pouring her something red; at the risk of appearing ungrateful for his hospitality, Christine said nothing of it, solicitously taking the glass he offered her in both hands and sniffing at the heady red liquid.

“Ah, but it is,” he countered, tipping his glass in her direction in something of a casual toast before settling himself in the wing chair opposite hers, “if it is an indication of your growing trust in me.”

"Of course I trust you, Erik," she said measuredly.

He made a soft sound in the back of his throat, inexplicably sending a chill up Christine's spine. Capturing her gaze, he asked her, though she knew he sought no reply: "sweet girl. Are you entirely sure that you should?" 

Christine lowered her gaze to her lap. Determined to look at anything but the masked man still staring contemplatively at her from across the hearth, one eyebrow cocked above the leather shield, she brought the glass to her lips; the wine was good, its flavor strong and robust on her tongue. “ _Oh,_ ” she remarked, before she could stop herself, blushing fiercely at the bark of laughter Erik gave at her vocal enthusiasm.

“Yes, it’s a rather good vintage,” he said mildly, as Christine took another sip, savoring the taste of it filling her mouth, feeling its heat as it warmed her belly from within. "Eighteen hundred and thirty-four… The unfortunate year of my birth, I am afraid, though something fine seems to have come out of that turn around the sun, it would appear." He swirled the contents of his glass. His expression darkened briefly, then returned to its carefully-measured look of pensive severity as he added, "consider it an olive branch, of a sort, my dear. You rarely cower when I touch you, now!" Was he making a joke? “Am I to assume you are no longer frightened of your Angel? For now you see he is simply but a mangy, forgotten mutt, curled up at your slippered feet, begging for the merest scraps of your attention––”

"Oh, Erik…" Christine stammered, uncomfortable, "mutt or otherwise, I am simply growing accustomed to your particularities.” She tried to make her voice sound lighthearted––a feat, so deep beneath the Earth. “And if you are but a dog, Monsieur, I admit that I find you entirely tame, and rather agreeable.”

Again, he laughed, and she felt as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders that she had not even realized the constant ache of until then; enjoying her own uncharacteristic wit, Christine brushed a curl from her cheek and smiled brightly. Holding her Maestro's searching gaze, she took a long sip of the forbidden drink, then ran a warm finger over her mouth to capture a stray drop and suck the sweet fluid from her fingertip.

Erik's tongue darted across his thin lip as he watched her drink. "I do believe I may have found myself in the company of a budding little vixen," he mused, lightly, as Christine blushed a deeper shade and fought another nervous smile. "A few more years, cheekish girl, and that smile could tumble the ramparts of a thousand civilizations!"

Washed in the flickering orange glow of the slowly-dying fire-light, they spoke of music, and of the goings-on of the Garnier up above, to which Erik appeared to wield a considerable degree of influence in nearly every aspect of its running. As his glass began to empty, her companion only talked with more enthusiasm, permitting Christine to simply listen, the role she was most comfortable with; in his presence, she never felt as if she could imagine something interesting enough to earn his ear. And so she sat in near-silence, laughing and blushing by turns as she drank from the fine leaded crystal goblet. Meanwhile, Erik spoke steadily, animatedly, with ever-increasing gusto––sometimes standing to rapidly pace a circle about the living room in excitement as he extolled the triumphs of some style of composition or musical score, or to drape his sinuous arm over the back of her chair and idly finger at her disordered curls. He paused in his exuberant recital only to collect her glass whenever he noted its contents were low, easily brushing away her polite refusals, and always refilling his own. 

Watching him, Christine wondered how long it had been since he last had a captive audience.

The man apparently detested la Carlotta with a raging fierceness, though he appeared to approve wholeheartedly of just about anything little Meg Giry––still two years Christine's junior––could do. He even made an indecorous comment (several, in truth) about the prima ballerina, la Sorelli, that gave Christine the uncanny sensation that her Maestro had some intimate knowledge of her; when Christine cleared her throat and stood following his third mention of the woman's _fine thighs and that trap between them_ , Erik stammered a confused apology and guided her again to sit with both hands placed carefully upon her shoulders.

"I have never known her, Christine," he said quietly from his place towering above her. "Nor desired to. She pales in comparison to you."

"I am not _jealous,_ Erik," answered Christine dryly, feigning theatrical disinterest, as she wondered internally if in fact, she was. Quickly smothering such an uncomfortable idea away, Christine met his wide, searching eyes, and said, "but I do not think it is right to speak so freely about a woman who is not in your presence––”

“Then may I speak of one who is?” he interjected, grasping the tall back of her chair with both hands, as Christine stared into the flickering hearth, sensing all the breath leave her body in a ragged hiss, “for here before me I am witness to the landing of an Angel! She is bedecked in robes of gossamer cobweb, and sunlight forms her flowing hair; her lips are like two pump red berries, sun-ripe and ready to eat––”

“Oh, Erik, really––” stammered Christine, as he continued, gingerly tracing the back of his palm over the curve of her curtain of yellow hair:

“––one can only imagine that warm, soft body hidden beneath, guarding that unfurling rose at her core, that secret garden only the most deserving of men may enter––"

Now his fingers teased across her shoulder, brushing her hair away from the skin. His other hand touched upon her collarbone; Christine bit at her bottom lip and pinched her eyes shut tight, feeling the sting of the fire’s light pulling water down her cheeks. Cradling her throat in both hands, Erik caressed her, gently, carefully sliding the tips of four fingers across the bare skin of her neck as his other hand traced her too-warm cheek. In absolute silence, as if he too had ceased to breathe, Erik slid the pad of one thumb beneath the neckline of her silk gown, just grazing the hollow between her small breasts. “Christine,” he whispered, from behind the chair, breaking the apprehensive laconism between them, “Christine, I––”

“Don’t,” she spluttered without understanding why, eyes still tightly shut.

Apparently sensing her agitation, Erik tore his hands away and presently changed the subject; soon, with breathless passion, he was again circling the darkened living-room, as if nothing strange had transpired between them, chattering animatedly of the merits of Debussy, Chopin, Mozart––then launching into a lengthy, intricate analysis of Wagner, of the composer's overtly-suggestive undertones and unashamed sensuality of theme. With another glass of wine, Christine found herself forgetting that last, uncomfortable exchange easily, and was soon laughing brightly at her companions uncommon joviality and deeply-cutting sarcasm (reserved for those artists of which he cared little)––until the conversation again turned to less delicate things, and Erik was recounting sordid and scandalous stories of forbidden trysts he had witnessed in the shadows of the Garnier up above:

"––yes, with a cucumber!" he claimed in excitement, miming an obscene gesture with two fingers as Christine blushed into her glass.

"Erik, that's absurd! No woman would willingly allow––"

"It was a cucumber, my dear… a large one! And I do believe they ate it, after that…" He raised an eyebrow, smiling his twisted smile, as Christine spit out her drink. 

Stammering a nervous apology to Erik's unrelenting stare, she swiped the red liquid from her chin as he threw his shrouded head back and laughed his dog’s laugh. The hour was late; the last time she had noted the chiming of the clock, Christine had counted eleven sonorous notes. She could recall four refillings of her glass––if not more, though Erik’s pourings had become excessively generous with the passage of time––and she had noted at least another bottle emptied besides the first. And so she laughed in earnest, covering her mouth with a pink-fingered hand and blushing fiercely when Erik demanded, his own canorous voice thick with the humor of liquor:

“––But surely you at least _touch_ yourself, Christine!”

She squealed with apprehensive delight at the indecorous question. "Oh, but I would never!" she insisted. "I couldn't! Erik, you mustn’t speak of such a thing, it’s obscene––"

“Hush, child,” he said solemnly, his mirth suddenly forgotten as he fixed his pensive stare to a shadowy wall somewhere behind Christine, “it is nothing to be ashamed of. Human pleasure––sexual gratification––is simply a fact of life. We beasts cannot do without it. Even beasts such as I––” he gestured loosely towards his face, the severe black shroud concealing all of his features save his thin lips and damaged chin, and added, “my sweet, lovely child––does that make you feel uncomfortable?”

“No,” she stammered, nervously taking a long sip of her drink. Her amusement with the topic rapidly fading at his continued insistence to discuss it, she coughed as she added, cheeks red with embarrassment, “Erik, perhaps we could speak of something else now––”

“But, my dear,” he persisted, his magnetic voice suddenly, ostentatiously staid, as he touched his elbows to his knees in interest, “has Erik shocked you? Is it––no, it simply could not be––but is it possible that even now, pretty Christine Daae is still a _virgin_?”

He must have known she was; Christine had revealed to the Angel nearly all of her secrets, long before she had known him as a man. He had demanded the answer of her the first time her dear Vicomte had captured her arm in the Garnier's bustling halls; just following that nostalgic interaction, the unearthly voice had been waiting to condemn her, its canorous echo pulsing with anger.

‘Have you bedded him?’ the voice boomed within the confines of her dressing-room, as Christine threw herself upon her chaise, breathless and giddy, clutching the dozen roses Raoul had only just pressed upon her in the hall to her chest. ‘Has that _fop_ paid for you in flowers?'

She rose slowly to sit, still holding the bouquet to her breast, and whispered, 'Angel, no––’

‘Not even in your youth?’ the Angel continued bitterly, as Christine bit back tears. ‘He is an aristocrat––what interest can he have in a chorus girl? What binds him to you, if not desire?’

‘We were only children then, Angel, we never––please, do not be angry with me, I have not betrayed you––" She dashed the Vicomte's bouquet to the carpet in a gesture of disdain and fixed her gaze to that uncanny mirror, that portal to the Heavens from which the voice seemed to emanate, beseeching the holy spectre to understand: "Raoul is a gentleman!’

'Even gentlemen fuck, Christine,' the Angel had spat viciously, and she had not heard a word from him for several days after that.

Could he think that since then, she had taken Raoul to her bed? Or had he never believed in her, at all?

And yet she could not escape the nagging sensation, that tingling at the back of her neck, that Erik had asked the question only to make her uncomfortable; like so many interactions with the Opera Ghost, Christine knew she was a player in a game of which only he knew the rules. She traced a finger along the gold-leafed rim of her glass, and listened to the faint, vibrating hum her touch produced as Erik watched her from his chair with interest, his yellow eyes glowing like embers behind the dark mask.

“Yes,” she admitted, finally, and Erik gave a soft sound of amusement beside her. "I am still a virgin."

"Interesting," he mused, leaning back in his chair as the tip of his tongue darted over his bottom lip, "Very interesting. I would not have expected it of you still, truly––" His mouth twisted in a wry smile. "You are telling me that a chorus girl of your ambition––in the _Opera_ , of all places––has never thought to sell herself even once? Not even to that fine, young Vicomte you so clearly favor?” He tapped his long fingers against his thigh, then dug his nails into the fabric of his trouser-legs. “You must have realized by now what his patronage could grant you. Not more than mine, of course, but his face is certainly more tolerable to look at, and I’m sure––well, despite being vapid and frankly, entirely insufferable––he makes for better company as far as you are concerned. It would surprise me little to learn that you had spread your legs for him, Christine, even since we last spoke on the subject. Now, be truthful, dear! It is only I who asks. Has the boy had you yet?" 

Hot tears peppered Christine's eyelashes as he took another slow sip. A worrying humor once-again flickered in his too-bright eyes behind the mask, and beneath that, something else, something both unsettling and enticing, as Christine stammered, blinking away her frustrated emotion,"Erik, of course not! How could you think such a thing of me! Raoul is my friend, only. There are no others! I have told you before––"

"––but surely you have wondered, Christine, what it might be like to have him," he continued. The reflected firelight shimmered on his wet lower lip. He pondered the swirling contents of his glass, uncrossing and spreading his long legs as he shifted in his seat, absently stroking his thigh with a palm; Christine knew the flesh beneath the fabric bled. "You must be curious; all women are. Have you not imagined what it feels like, to take a man inside? To be _fucked––_ "

"Erik––" she warned.

But he continued, voice low and alarmingly strained, long fingers now clutching his knees in a vice grip, "you are but a tiny, lovely thing, child…" His mouth hung slightly open, his thin lips dry and tautened beneath the mask. "Absolute perfection… to think that another man might have used you so––that you might have debased yourself to that pretty Vicomte, for no other reason but his youth and beauty––" 

"Erik, I haven't… I am what I say! I am intact." She chewed at her bottom lip, unable to break his stare, though a distracting heat had begun to ache in the pit of her belly.

"He is a fine-looking fop, I'll warrant you that much," Erik pressed on, his uncommon voice somehow both casual and terse. "I imagine you must clench your thighs whenever you see him––"

"Erik, you mustn't talk like this to me!"

"Mustn't I? I was only preparing to make a most generous offer." He was leaning forward in his chair. "See, if you wanted to know, Christine––Erik could––"

"That's _enough_ ." Christine felt the blush heating her cheeks, her nose; she took another long sip to calm herself. Something in her companion's manner had changed; she felt an uneasiness, the same warning chill she had sensed the night he first spirited her down below, creeping up the length of her spine at the look in his yellow eyes. "All women _wonder_ , Erik," she began unsteadily, "but we know better than to act on such desires. Or to go seeking the answers."

"Really?" He sounded disinterested; his sudden, measured nonchalance shamed her. She already knew he thought of her as a child, or at least as naive; clearly, he was showing her his dissatisfaction with her response to his strangely suggestive, prying words. "Ah, well. And I thought you such a clever, independent girl––"

"I am one!" she insisted, attempting to conceal her offense. Was he not always alluding to her innocence? She felt it radiate from him like an accusation in the look of disdain he often cast upon her, staring at her from across the dining table, or from her bedroom doorway at night as he stood watching her say her evening prayers in only his dressing gown––

Once, his hand had slid between the silk folds and his lips parted slightly as he stared, and even as one hand gripped the woodwork, even as his body went limp and panting, Christine pretended not to see. 

They had never spoken of it again.

Now, emboldened by the wine, Christine narrowed her gaze and asked him, "Erik… are you one, like me?"

He barked a laugh and wiped red liquid from the corner of his twisted lip. "Am I a virgin? Christine, do not be absurd." Then, frowning at her obvious surprise, he added, gently, "I have not always been the hermit you see before you now."

"Were you married?"

He snorted. "Married? God no. Do you think a woman would agree to wed this?"

"Then you––"

"I have never raped a woman!" he spat suddenly, gripping the arm of his chair with one hand, "you may think me a dog, but I will _not_ lower myself to behave as one––"

"No, Erik!" wailed Christine, miserable, "I did not mean to imply––" he scowled up at her and turned his glass in a palm. "I––just, that you have had lovers, then. If you have––"

"Prostitutes, Christine," he admitted, briefly shutting his eyes and running a hand over his face. "Any companionship I have received, I have paid heavily for."

"––oh."

"Are you disgusted with me?"

"No, Erik––"

But he prodded at the carpet with a toe and hissed under his breath, "I do not need your pity, child. I am disgusted enough in myself as it is."

But his seething anger was only fleeting; just as soon as Christine had recovered from his outburst, he was already smiling jovially at her from across the hearth, good-naturedly swirling his wine in his splayed fingers. "Enough of this dismal chatter!" he said dismissively, and presently threw back the contents of his glass, then stood, gathering up his cup and hers to refill them. Glancing back at her from the bar he held the two overfilled goblets aloft and added, laughing stiltedly, "unless of course, you would be amenable to taking my coin!"

Collecting her overflowing glass from his outstretched hand, Christine stammered, "oh, Erik, do not insult me so––"

He shrugged a careless shoulder, though behind the black holes of the mask his eyes burned like yellow fire; Christine could not look. "It was a joke, do not act so damn horrified. As if I would desire a child with a hairless cunt––" 

"I am not a child––"

"No?" he said acidly, on a loud swallow, slumping into his seat. His too-sharp front teeth had reddened with the wine. "So prove it! Stop guarding that swamp between your thighs like it's a treasure and use the damned thing before it dries up!"

" _Erik!_ " she cried, stupefied, just as her fumbling agitation caused her to slosh a wave of deep-burgundy wine across her skirts. Noticing the damage only several moments too late for pretended sobriety, she muttered, forgetting her discomfort in her distracting panic, "oh, Erik, look what I've done––and you bought me this one, special––"

"Take it off," he said quietly from his chair. 

Christine laughed, though that warning heat thrummed urgently in her belly. She spoke to her lap. "You are in a very strange humor tonight, Monsieur, I think!"

"If you say so, Christine," he muttered, tipping back another sip of his drink as Christine padded at her ruined skirts with a napkin. Then, placing his once-again empty cup on the side-table with a languorously measured deliberation, he sighed and stood. 

Standing just before her as she fussed at the stain in her lap, Erik reached forward and took up her glass with the tips of his long fingers, depositing it carefully on the table beside his own. He passed a hand over the crown of her head and down her wine-warmed jaw, stilling her frantic motions and drawing her gaze up to meet his. 

Her vision swam as she gazed into his unwavering stare; she sucked in a breath when the pad of his thumb slid up her chin and across her lower lip, brushing against her bottom teeth. His mouth was open; she could hear his quietly rasping breaths as they pushed from his parted lips. She tasted the warm salt of his fingers, the sweet tang of spilled wine in her spit. 

"I think it is time for bed, Christine," he said gently.

"Oh," she breathed, and bit her lip.

Christine was no stranger to the silent terrors of men; to the insidious threat of their desires. Even as a young child, busking in the street alongside her father, she had felt their appraising stares and understood what they saw behind their narrowed eyes as they looked at her, stroking the inside of her small palm with a fingertip as she reached for their offered coins. It was a senseless terror that gripped her then, freezing her blood even as it pounded from her still heart.

‘Little thing,’ they would say, capturing her wrist as their coins littered the ground at her feet, 'how much for a song in private?’

But her father was always there, to catch her as she floundered, grasping her hand in his and meeting those monsters by the eyes. ‘Go, Monsieur,’ he would command, blue eyes flashing like the sea during a summer storm, ‘we do not need your coin so badly as this.’

Now her father was long dead and buried, and only the Angel he had sent her remained.

And Erik was that Angel. Her protector.

Erik could be trusted. 

He dropped into a squat before her, carefully placing both palms on the armrests of her chair and caging her within his reach. Christine could not help but smile to see him so close and in such a strange pose, unable to hold back a shy laugh as one long-fingered hand eased over her knee.

"Christine, I think you should come with me."

"Oh, let me sleep," she protested, mildly, watching the slow movement of his fingers up her thigh.

"I intend to," he said, "but first––" He let the sentence hang in the air between them, as cold as silently falling snow. His gaze, heavy-lidded and sparking with yellow fire, glided over her features, lingering about her open mouth; as Christine felt a blush heat her cheeks, his stare slid lower, lighting over the bare skin of her throat. She sucked in a breath, suddenly dizzy, as once more, that secret, nameless fear crept beneath her skin––

"Erik, really," she stammered, staring at his fingers carving channels in her skirts as they slowly teased about her hips and just below her belly, her spit still glistening on one trembling finger; she puzzled at the strange sensation his uncharacteristic touch ignited in her, at the odd, unwelcome heat steadily building between her thighs. "What are you trying to––"

"Nothing, Christine," he said gravely, raising his hand and curling the long fingers into a tight fist between them, "nothing. Excuse me––I am afraid I too have overindulged. It has been quite some time since I––well, and you––"

And then he fixed his stare to hers, swallowing her in his gaze such that Christine could not look away. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot within the dark cavities of his mask; Christine smiled, giggling distractedly as she raised a hand to touch his cheek.

"I wish I knew what you were thinking," she whispered.

He looked ashamed. "Oh, Christine… " he sighed miserably, "no, you don't."

But she ignored him, fascinated with the black face so curiously close to her own. When her palm met his leather skin, his yellow eyes narrowed, widened, then closed; emboldened by the fire of so many drinks, Christine traced the curves and angles of his false features with the hot tips of her curious fingers, charting the edges of his mask at his hairline and about his ears. Thoughtlessly, her touch traveled to his naked jaw, his chin; when her fingers slid across his parted lips he whispered, breathless: "Christine, do you think, in time, you could ever consider––"

She did not let him finish; in an instant of inexplicable madness, Christine had gripped the mask in a fist and torn it away. The leather shroud fell between them, settling in her lap atop the red wine stain as above her, unseen, Erik recoiled and growled a curse in surprise; running her fingertips over the false, sculpted nose where it lay nestled in an uncanny irony between her thighs, Christine muttered, numb to his palpable, seething rage, "I do hate this thing. A man in a mask… Erik, you are so much more terrifying when you wear it… "

"Terrifying?" he echoed softly, _"more?"_ His fingers curled in cruel vices about the arms of her chair, pinning her within a prison of his body. "Christine,” he continued, his voice steady, teasing at danger, “look up, right now. Look at my face."

She could not.

His breath was hot against her crown as he spoke; he had pressed his naked, grotesque cheek to her sweating temple, his mouth open on her skin. "Is it me you are afraid of?” he whispered into her flesh, lower lip dragging her brow. “Tell me now. Is it me, as a man––not an Angel––only a man, Christine––here before you? Or are you simply terrified to see _it_ , _this––_ this repugnance of God's divine failure, this foul stain atop my shoulders, and damn the man that dies behind? Are you afraid of what you shall find reflected there, should you only dare to look?"

"Certainly not," she lied, still unable to meet his eye. She winced; her head was already pounding from the wine. In her lap, the black mask mocked her, a freakish, lifeless visage, haloed in wine-red silk and staring up at her with its empty, wanting eyes.

Now Erik crawled a hand behind her lowered head, gripping her firmly at the base of her skull and drawing her towards him. His fingertips pressed into the curve of her spine, angling her head upwards and her face to his; she gasped, taking in the sight of his carious flesh just inches before her own, the rotted mass twisted and contorted in a horrible expression Christine could not read, as the Angel repeated, spittle foaming on his warped lip: "innocent child, what are you really afraid of?"

No words would form on her lips; she floundered, stammering, trying not to look and yet enraptured by the alienishness of that repellant face, those inhuman, wanting features further ravaged by old age and ill-health, that open, gaping maw of a mouth and his warped and glassy eyes––

"Perhaps it is love you fear, of the terrifying kind," he said, urgently, sickly yellow stare still searching hers; Christine felt the heat stinging at her ears and across her brow as he added, capturing her hand in both of his: "I am afraid of my love for you, too. I am afraid of what I already desire of you. Christine, if you only feel it too––"

"You mustn't speak so," Christine protested, running her free palm over her brow to ease the disgusted nausea she felt churning in her stomach. She pressed her eyelids tightly together in an attempt to escape him, even as he kneaded his wanting fingers into her open palm. Absently, she added, if only to prevent him from saying any more, "I am never to marry. You commanded it of me yourself. No men, you told me, or my lessons would cease and the Angel would not be pleased––"

"But could you ever love me? Christine––this face, could you love it? Could you––could you _want_ it? One day. When you are ready. Of your own accord.”

“The question is absurd,” she said, hearing the slur in her voice. Why must he ask such things of her now? Her throat burned; she needed water–– "Erik, my throat is parched––"

"Look at me," he snapped, then, as she raised her pounding head, he added, anxiously: "see, you look upon me with no fear––"

"Erik… you are very, very unpleasant to look upon."

He laughed, though there was a certain detachment to the sound, and after several echoing moments, all the electric anger pulsing from him seemed as if to fade. He ran the back of a finger across her cheek, speaking quietly, resignedly: "and still you look… Perhaps, my dear, you could get used to looking?"

The shock of it was receding, just as it had that first time she had learned what lay beneath the leather shroud, that earlier, terrible night; now Christine smiled, hating herself for so readily revealing her fear. "Everything is easier to bear with a sip of wine," she offered.

His twisted face fell, the gruesome features slack, as he said seriously, "yes. Of course. Things that would be unbearable in the light––"

And then he fixed his gaze again to hers, adding hastily, as if the impetuous thought had only just-then occurred to him, "as I can see that I will not have the chance again, Christine––you must forgive me this––" and soon, with a breathless sound that was nearly a groan, Erik had crushed his mouth to hers, swallowing her lips with his own. 

He kissed her as if he intended to consume her, suddenly enfolding her within his grasp, as his hands forced her face to his and his tongue slid in her protesting mouth. He moaned against her and the carnal sound frightened her, as did the strange sensation––was it revulsion? Something else––building in her lower belly and forcing her shuddering groan. Christine's eyes were open, his closed; after what felt like an eternity, Erik pulled away, still holding her head in his hands.

"Oh, that's not right," Christine protested, stupidly, catching her breath. "You shouldn't––"

"I'm sorry," he muttered, dropping his hands to his sides. "Oh, God––"

And then, with hardly a moment's pause, again he reached for her, digging his fingertips into the hot flesh of her face and angling it to his: now when he kissed her, it was not urgent, not rough, but sweetly tender, as his mouth brushed over her closed lips, pressing soft kisses to the surrounding skin, her nose, her chin. He kissed each closed eye and the fat of her cheek, and when he met her mouth again, her lips were barely parted, and Christine could taste the wine on his tongue as it slid against hers like the serpent Himself, slithering in the garden; dizzy, overcome, Christine let him cover her with kisses, by turns moaning weakly into the offputting, overwhelming pleasure of his touches, and giggling quietly at the sheer strangeness of such eager affection.

"Are you all right, Christine?" he said gently, when finally, he pulled away. He was wringing his hands near his groin. "––surely it was not so terrible, after all––only a kiss, really––"

"I am too dizzy to stand, I fear," she confessed, whispering theatrically and wiping the back of a hand across her lips, refusing to acknowledge what they had just done; Erik's eyes narrowed to sharp slits in the horror of his flushed and anxious face. "I think you must leave me now. I will have to pass the night in your chair, Erik, or risk an embarrassing tumble––"

"Christine, you shall do no such thing, clearly––"

"Oh, but I shall," she insisted, patting the back of his hand, "you must not see me so graceless. I cannot trust my feet at present––useless, rubber things!––Erik, leave me here––"

"Finish your drink, my dear," he said quietly, after several moments, carefully returning her half-full glass to her hands. "Then Erik will help you safely to bed."

He watched her drink with offputting intensity, each breath hissing through the snottily bulbous, uneven holes of his nose, his slit of a mouth tightly drawn. His fingers clawed at her armrests, mindlessly scraping the finish from the wood with his too-long nails. When Christine tried to replace her glass on the table with two fingers of red liquid still inside, Erik shook his head, and capturing the glass in a white fist, he held it to her lips until it was at last empty, as with a thumb he wiped away the sticky red that dribbled down her chin.

When did he lift her? Her arms were wrapped around his neck; idly she toyed with the hairs at the base of his skull with her splayed fingertips. As he held her she became aware of the strange invasion of his fingers pressing into the cleft of her rear, searching between her thighs; with a weak sound of complaint Christine wiggled into his hold until the fingers shifted, spreading and settling against the fat of her rump. He was carrying her somewhere, across the living-room and down the dark hall. Outside her bedroom door, he adjusted her against his sturdy chest as he fumbled, one handed, with the brass knob; with a sleepy sigh of contentment, Christine nestled her chin into his shoulder, listening to the steadily increasing drumbeat of his heart as it echoed in his chest.

Every inch of the man was music.

"I like this," Christine whispered, against his chest. Above her, Erik nodded, and silently pressed his ruined lips to her forehead.

"Forgive me," he breathed.

Inside the softly-lit refuge of her little bedroom, with its painted-globe gas lamps, blue velvet and ivory lace, Erik moved like a spectre. He deposited her on the edge of her mattress with all the care of a priest handling a holy relic; gracelessly, Christine flopped onto her back and dug her fingers into the soft blankets, sighing like a sleepy child. Above her, Erik was silent, even as she smiled up at him, though she gradually became aware of the sensation of his hand against her skirts, brushing over the wine stain in her lap and easing down one thigh. She felt a gentle pressure on her knee as his palm rounded the joint; then, unable to bear the sensation any longer, Christine jerked about, laughing at his strange touch. Unbothered, Erik slid his hand down her leg atop the stained silk to capture her foot, still in its boot, and hold it up between them.

"You are a very strange man," Christine offered, wiggling her ankle despite his hold.

"You do not know the half of it," he replied, slowly dragging apart the bow of one bootlace, "although I do wish I were less so."

Confused by the vague statement and too intoxicated to puzzle its cryptic meaning, Christine rose to sit, propping herself up against the mattress with both palms even as Erik busied at her laces. He balanced her boot against his thigh, stooping low to work at it; she followed his long, deft fingers as they flew across the laces just as she had so often seen them dancing over the throat of his violin. Soon the shoe was loose and her foot free, as the thing tumbled to the floor, and Erik's fingertips trailed across her stockinged toes, forcing Christine's nervous sound of protest. He took up her other foot, briefly raised his eyes to capture hers, and said, once the second shoe had tumbled to the ground and he had again straightened, "you are still looking at my face, Christine."

Her vision shot to her lap. "I'm sorry––" 

"No, don't be," he drawled, carefully, "I admit that I am rather enjoying your gaze." As he spoke, his fingers crawled the length of her stockings beneath her skirts; before Christine recognized his intention, though the act had forced her to shudder, Erik had captured her stockings in two fists and was slowly, deliberately dragging them down her nerveless legs. As the gossamer silk sheathes fell to the carpet between them, Erik said, gruffly, with a meaningful glint in his yellow eye, "do you always forgo panties, Christine?"

Then, before Christine could think to speak, to respond to the obscene comment, his fingers plunged once more beneath her skirts. 

Any other evening, and she would have stopped him: any other evening, and she might have cried out, slapped his twisted face, and locked him away from her bedroom forever. Any other evening––

Any other man.

Now Erik stroked both hands over her bare thighs, underneath her skirts, staring down at the shadowed movement of his fingers beneath the fabric as Christine, lips slightly parted, did the same. When on a ragged, meaningful exhale his thumb brushed the thatch of soft hair crowning her sex she sprung to her senses, wriggling from his touch and shifting backwards against the mattress, her head shaking a wordless _no;_ Erik met her frantic stare, and after a moment that felt like an eternity to Christine, dragged his hands from beneath her skirts and raised them in a silent gesture of submission.

But Christine's heart was racing in her chest, as her breath rasped, too-heavy, from her open mouth. _No_ , she told herself, refusing to accept the question she knew he was asking, _not that,_ even as the words were painted all over his horrible face–– _he doesn't intend that––_ as he met her stare and drew his serpent's tongue across his bottom lip.

"Don't––" she whispered, hoping it was enough, hating the red shame that had risen in her cheeks.

She pressed her eyelids shut tight, trying to ignore the straining tightness of his trousers just below eye-level, the promise making itself known against the edge of the mattress and precariously close to her spread thighs. In the periphery of her vision Christine saw him shift his hips, rubbing himself against the barrier there, as from his parted lips, he uttered a soft sound of pleasure that sent needles crawling up her spine.

"You could touch me, if you liked," came Erik's quiet voice, just above her lowered face, the loaded words tumbling in Christine's raddled brain. She forced her gaze to her lap as he leaned in closer, only the barest of inches, and heat pooled, insistent and unfathomable, between her thighs. "Does the idea not excite you, even in the least?"

Again he kissed her: carefully, he brushed his lips over her forehead, then down her jaw to her throat, smoothing her hair over her spine as he pressed her mouth to his. She shifted in her seat, mindlessly spreading her legs as Erik broke from her lips, breathing the words against her skin like the Devil's own secrets, "––I know you are curious, Christine––and if you closed your eyes, you could see anyone you wanted to see––even him––"

"No," she said softly, still refusing to acknowledge why she felt such fear. "No, Erik––"

But his tone was calm, kind when he next spoke, carefully taking her hand in his and guiding her to slide from the edge of the mattress. "Then do not think of it again," he said, and it felt like a promise. "Let me help you with your buttons." With both her hands grasped in his, he squeezed the fingers only once, kissing her forehead as he did so, then released her to turn her about by a guiding palm on her hip.

And yet there was a roughness to his manner, an uncharacteristic stiltedness as he worked the buttons down her spine. He stood close, much too close; Christine could feel the press of his body against hers, the alien hardness there as, grunting weakly, he pushed it into the fat of her rear. For every toe she inched forward in attempted escape, Erik took another step, and then another, until the front of her legs were pressed against the high mattress, and she had to grip the sideboard to stop herself from toppling over the front of the bed. Soon his hands were crawling beneath the layers of her clothes, they were circling her waist, they were gliding over the curve of her breast as his breath rasped in her ear––

 _No_ , she told herself, _this isn't what her Angel wanted––_

In the near-dark room, her vision swam behind her closing eyelids. When she shut her eyes tight to steady herself, she could see her blood pulsating and moving in the translucent skin; dizzy, she thrust out a hand to keep herself upright, capturing his wrist as he rounded her hip and pushed his fingers between her thighs.

Digging her nails into the skin she breathed, "stop––" and again, he eased the hand away.

"Turn around," came Erik's insistent voice behind her, soft and too-close in her ear: she could not refuse him. As she turned she stumbled slightly, feeling her dress pulling over her shoulders, her breasts, her waist; with purpose, Erik was undressing her, gracelessly tugging her blouse, then her skirts over her hip. Christine stared at the fabric puddled on the floor at her feet.

"It needs a wash," she mumbled, distractedly eyeing the pile of wine-stained silk. "It looks like I've been bleeding…"

Erik ran a palm down the curve of her rear, lightly squeezing the fat through her petticoats, and breathed, almost as if he had not meant to speak the words aloud, "I can make you bleed, Christine."

But she choked on her reply, swallowing the words in her dry throat. Now as Christine stood before him, pliably numb, Erik took from her her corset cover, then her stays, caressing the fabrics against her skin even as he divested her of them. Her petticoats dropped to her ankles; cold and confused, she stood before him in only her thin chemise. "You shouldn't be here," she whispered, unsteadily, back arching mindlessly into the sensation of his palm closing over her almost-bare breast. "You cannot see me like this––"

"No, I shouldn't, Christine," he murmured, ignoring her protests, as Christine held her breath, "but you are unbelievable––" His gaze followed his hand, still teasing over her flesh. "You hardly seem as reticent as you claim, my dear…" Gliding his fingers beneath her sweeping neckline, he thumbed her piqued nipple under her chemise. "Your body certainly enjoys my attention. Are you already imagining your pretty Vicomte?" Then, after several moments spent in silence as he stroked her, though his siren's voice trembled as he spoke the words, he added slowly, every word dripping with something she could not dare to think on, "Christine… get into the bed."

He put out his hand. Numb, she took it without pause; with a palm at the base of her spine, Erik guided her beneath the sheets. 

Though it had for some time threatened her good senses, the drink caught up with her as soon as her head hit the pillow; Christine could not focus on the shape above her for all the spinning in her pounding head. She flailed out a clumsy arm, curling her fingernails into his lapel as confusedly, she muttered, "Angel––I do not feel quite right––"

Staring down at her from his impressive height at her bedside, Erik met her clouded, sleepy stare. He unwound her hand from his dinner-jacket and brought it to his twisted lips; pressing a wet kiss upon the hot skin he returned the hand to rest atop the quilts. On a sigh, he slid his fingers up her bare arm, and breathed, "Christine, I must admit that I am contemplating something terrible, and yet I find myself unable to deter myself from the act..." His gaze was fixed to her breasts, to her dark nipples pointed with cold, their dusky shadow barely outlined beneath the sheer cotton of her chemise. In a voice that sent a chill down her spine, he added, drawing his tongue over his too-sharp dog's teeth, "I very much want to hurt you."

"Of course you do not," she laughed, but the sound was hollow and forced; his grave expression quieted her. On a shuddering inhale, she whispered, "Erik… then you must not do whatever it is you want to do."

"What if I am unable to stop myself?" He brushed two fingers over the peak of her nipple; Christine gasped and held her breath, unable to exhale again, as following his own movements with an animal's hunger, Erik added, transfixed, "Do I have any choice? I want to commit a sin of the most grievous sort, and desire greatly to surrender to it…" His fingertips closed over her tit and she gasped; soothing the swollen skin with the pad of his thumb he added, mildly: "poor, innocent child… could you even hope to prevent me, if I attempted it?"

She knew she could not. Not undressed, half-drunk, in the bed of this man she thought she knew. Not five stories beneath the Earth, in his tomb, where no one but he could hear her scream, and no one but he could lead the way above––

Why had it never occurred to her before? What else could a grown man intend with a girl held captive in his home like a prisoner, like a princess in an underground tower?

"Perhaps you are a gift from the Gods, for me, after a lifetime of suffering and denial. This tight little package... Why should I try to resist?" Atop the blankets, his hand dragged down her belly to hover about her hip. "You would hate it at first, but Christine––just as you kissed me––you would like it, I think, by the end. Would you not?"

"I do not know what you mean," Christine breathed, wishing the words were true. Still, he was her Angel––and this, only another strange game. Only another improper conversation, intended to make her writhe and blush; surely he was toying with her. It was only the drink, making fools of them both––

Erik was chewing at his lower lip, kneading her breast in a palm as Christine lay limp and terrified beneath him, her shallow breaths shuddering through parted lips. "You haven't said no, Christine," he whispered.

That throbbing awareness had begun to pound unbearably between her thighs, and Christine ignored it; and yet she made no attempt to stop his molesting fingers, as his every touch sent shockwaves down to that forbidden place. "Erik, please," she whispered, attempting to blink away her circling thoughts, her dancing vision, "not this."

"Do you remember the night I brought you down here? Any of it at all?" he asked, suddenly urgent, her breast still gripped in his fist.

She remembered: how could she forget? She had slept in his arms then, too, lulled to sleep on a hypnotic wave of perfect, ethereal sound and dark, bitter medicine. She remembered his wings, enclosing her in the safest of embraces, his fingers, moving like spiders beneath her clothes. His quiet, percussive grunting at her bedside, as her eyelids fluttered over her unseeing eyes––

She had woken in a nightgown of the finest Chinese silk. The clothing she had followed him down below was hung neatly in her wardrobe; there were faint purple bruises on her throat and across her chest, and a sticky, sweet smelling stain upon the mattress––

"Christine, I––I very nearly––"

"No," she whispered, refusing to listen, lest he speak words she could not bear to hear, "but you did not. Erik––" she realized she was pleading, "––you did not––"

"No," he admitted, and Christine gave a shuddering sigh of relief for a fear she had not even been aware of until then, "I did not. Not that. But only because you looked so lifeless, after all that laudanum. Just here, on this bed, as if it were your mortuary slab… a beautiful, dead little girl. Nothing is quite so beautiful as a dead girl, Christine…except perhaps a living one, naked and frightened upon my mother's bed… " He sighed. "I've never had a woman in my own home before, you know…"

Now his focus returned, as he said gravely, "Christine, I did not lie to you previously. I have never compelled a woman––but by God, that night, I was ready to do it. Oh God, forgive me, I was ready––" he stroked his palm heavily up her bicep, "––poor, trusting Christine––what would your daddy say if he knew? For I am very nearly ready now, and none but I can save you… "

"You do not need to say these things," she tried, wishing he would stop and her head would cease its pounding. And yet the alcohol numbed her thoughts, erasing that heart stopping panic as quickly as it had come; now she laughed quietly, oddly, stretching her bare toes into the cool expanse between the soft sheets. "Hush," she breathed, forgetting his frightening words, "it is no matter now. Let us forget the lot of it. Let me sleep, dear––"

With a shaking palm he slid the straps of her chemise from one shoulder, ravenous gaze following his movements as Christine lay pliant and senseless beneath him, limbs frozen beneath the thin sheet. Loosing the fabric just enough to uncover one breast, Erik bent low to whisper against her skin: "What is it about you that makes me desire you so? Is it this pristine, unblemished face? These plump, girlish lips, and that terrible act I can envision them committing, each time I close my undeserving eyes? Christine, I am nothing more than a monster. The beast to your beauty. If I had you, would it not be no less repellant than the wolf taking red beneath her grandmother's sheets?"

"––But you wouldn't––"

"Wouldn't I? I haven't before, it's true…" He chewed at his lopsided lip. "To you, I am a but a pet, am I not? An animal, only. A dog… you have said it yourself. You tolerate me, surely… but you do not see me as a man. You do not want me… Christine, do you? Could you?" But before she could think to answer he lowered his gaze and added, "if I am only an animal to you, should I not play the part? Even dogs find mates, my love. Even dogs will fuck a bitch––"

"I don't understand," she whispered.

He sighed. "I wanted to be like a father to you, you know. I thought it was a daughter I was seeking, who might love me and give me sweet kisses––Christine, when I came to you, I swear I only sought your kind affection. I truly did seek to be your pet…

"But the animal is hungry, my love, and his only sustenance is his master's flesh…" Bending low, he dragged his tongue about the curve of her breast; Christine whimpered in surprise and twisted from the heat of his mouth, freeing her drool-sodden tit. Erik's hand came down to press her by a shoulder into the mattress as he groaned, "your skin is so hot, Christine," and his lips closed over her nipple.

She knew it was wrong, that what he did was obscene, inappropriate, and still she did nothing; she could not find the strength to move her arms, and besides, it felt good, the warmth of his spit on her skin. Like an embrace, she rode the gentle sensation without reaction, sleepily fluttering her eyes closed as his tongue swirled over the puckered flesh. He folded over her body; soon he had her other breast clutched in one groping palm, as he groaned weakly against her chest. His body moved like a serpent above hers, writhing close, with mounting desperation; atop it all, waggling upon his shoulders like a dead thing's, hung his corpse's face, taunting her with its naked, animal teeth––

Now he was stroking himself above his trousers, his knee raised and pressing into the edge of the mattress, as he gave a mindless grunt, his skeleton's fingers groping at his buttons, tearing the fabric apart––

"Erik!" she whimpered, senseless and yet unmoving, even as his palm dragged from her breast and down her trembling belly, pushing beneath the sheets; confused, overwhelmed, she flailed her head upon her pillow, taking in the strange room that was not her own, the shadows, terrible and mocking on the walls, and cried out, panting, "I only want to go to sleep!"

With a groan he tore himself from her, stumbling from the side of the bed and stepping away. His eyes were wide in his horror of a face as he spat, "I should never have brought you here––"

"Then bring me home, Erik––I am frightened––"

Her wet nipple stood up against her chest, pink and swollen from his mouth. A track of frothy drool dribbled down the curve of her tit to puddle on the clean sheets below. Relieved by her release, Christine gave a soft sigh, eyes drowsy, and shifted to her side, her bare breast hanging out at her front, as Erik muttered, “why must you make it so easy, my love? Only to look––it should have been enough. It was meant to be enough! Christine, you're only a girl…” He was watching her with unguarded horror, his long fingers gripping at the bedsheets in tightly coiled fists. "Please, you cannot let me do this," he said raggedly, urgently, "Christine, can you not see what is happening? Sleep, she begs––just sleep? My God, child, resist me, you idiot––"

In a sudden violence he crashed his arm against the side of the mahogany bed, striking the thinnest part of his wrist upon the sharp-edged hardwood. Grunting in pain, Erik stumbled backwards from the bed, only a labored step, gripping his injured wrist in the opposite palm, as Christine stared up at him in confused alarm; he shot her an apologetic glance and repeated the savage act, this time buckling over slightly and clutching at the mattress edge as he gave a strangled cry. He was trembling all over, panting slightly, with half closed ugly eyes; black-blue flooded over the skin of his wrist resting limply atop the blankets. 

"Help me," he whispered, "Kill me! Chain me to the bedpost, run me through, God damn it, oh, Christine, tear these thoughts from within me––I do not want to be who I am––"

"You are a good man, Erik," she said seriously, her fear forgotten in the wake of his self-injurious violence, replaced with confused alarm and concern, even as her bare, sodden breast hung out at her front. Her clumsy fingers darted out from beneath the blankets to press lightly against his chest, just above his hammering heart. "How shall I help you see?" she asked in earnest, as Erik's face fell. "You have been so good to me… my Angel." She flopped over beneath the blankets to capture his damaged wrist in a delicate, exploratory grip, then clumsily interlaced her fingers with his. "I see only goodness here. How can you believe that is not so?"

Erik stared at their intertwined hands, his expression miserable. "Please, Christine," he said, in a voice no louder than a breath, "I love you so, so much. I need you… Say you will forgive me."

She trusted the Angel. She loved him.

"I would forgive you anything."

He was silent. Then, squeezing the tips of her fingers, Erik released her hand, as Christine turned on her pillow with a contented sigh. "Goodnight, Erik," she yawned, sleepily curling into herself beneath the blankets.

"Goodnight, Christine."

But no sound followed his reply; no click of the lock or tap of withdrawing feet. No familiar swish of the gas lamps shutting off as he went. As always, his energy was palpable; Christine could feel him, even without seeing, even with her eyes pinched tightly shut––

He was taking off his shoes.

Christine shuffled about on her pillows. "Erik," she whispered, straining her neck to again face him, blinking as her vision swam, "why haven't you left yet? I make for very poor conversation when I am asleep."

"I am not leaving," he said simply. "I am sorry."

"Don't be ridiculous," she laughed, "this isn't where you sleep!"

"It is tonight," he said, and the quiet resignation in his voice quieted her humor. 

He stood at the side of the bed as if he were waiting for something, some sign, some word; then, sighing, he fixed his stare to the sputtering candle on the nightstand and said, "I do believe the Devil has won me, child."

She drew her hand again beneath the blankets. "Erik, you must try to fight him––"

"My poor Christine," he said sadly, "I never have been able to, before. How am I to manage now?" He brought a palm to her cheek. Against her skin, Christine could feel his fingers quivering. "Do not concern yourself now, my love. I imagine this battle was lost long ago… the moment I saw your sweet face. You stared right at me, did you know? No, no––you couldn't have known… no one ever sees me. But for one moment, I almost believed that you could. I suppose it was then that I first knew… I would die to have you, see? It is an uncanny thing, really… did I never tell you that you bear a striking resemblance to my dead mother?"

"Your mother?" she stammered, confused. "Erik, I do not understand––"

"Ah. It is no matter," he sighed, "you soon will. In truth I wonder if you will even remember any of this, tomorrow," he added gently, tucking a curl behind her ear. "I wonder if you will hate me, or forgive me what I do..."

"Then do not do it, Erik," she whispered, afraid to acknowledge what every cell in her body was now screaming in warning, what the hairs at the back of her neck stood up for in their primal alert––

 _Run,_ hissed the voice within. _You have always known this of him. You have feared him all along._

_This is the reason. Run._

He turned again, leaving her trembling in his absence, and said, busying himself with the fastenings of his garments, "perhaps, in your cups as you are, you will even enjoy it, Christine. What shall we wager upon?" He laughed dryly, then sighed, tossing his waistcoat over a side chair. "Will the drink make a fighter of you, or a whore?" His gaze met hers and he frowned, ugly features twisting about in that gruesome face. “Only promise me that you will not scream.”

“I promise,” Christine said numbly.

His trousers slid to the floor. Freed from its confines his long linen dress shirt draped about his hips, covering his naked, thin limbs to the upper thigh; beneath the wrinkled fabric, the shadow of what lay underneath bulged and stained the fine fabric wet with a patch of sticky looking fluid. A thatch of dark, coarse-looking hair crawled up his inner thighs to thicken and consume his pale flesh; angry scars in purple, red and brown tracked his legs to the knees. He still wore his socks in their neat leather garters.

"Don't undress," she whispered, knowing it was useless to ask. He would not meet her eye. "Please, Erik."

He had slid a hand beneath his shirt to work a senselessly rhythmic, slick-sounding gesture at his groin; when he pulled his hand away moisture sparkled against the pale skin, and his linen dress shirt tented over his low belly. Now he threw her a helpless look and stepped from his abandoned trousers, his erection plain at the hem of his shirt: "It is much too late for that, little love. Surely you understand––the drink will help, I think, only surrender to it––"

Blind panic was screaming in her skull and yet she only dug her fingers into the blankets, frozen atop the mattress, unable to breathe, to think, as she muttered, senseless: "Erik, you mustn't––"

"Are you going to fight me, then, or make this easy?" he countered, suddenly virulent, loosening his tie with a clawed hand and tearing it from about his throat, as the purplish head of his thick cock bobbed between his thighs, primed and weeping. Christine glanced at the length of finely-embroidered silk dangling from his fist and sucked in a mouthful of air; meeting his unyielding gaze, she coughed, as he added, "or do I need to bind you?"

"No––" she breathed, still in shock. Like molasses, a heavy fluid dripped from between his thighs, only a thick, milky drop, to spatter against the carpet at his feet. Like a beacon it drew her eye, and still she refused to see; another drop followed the first, bursting against the ornate persian weave, another––

"Good." His waistcoat joined his trousers on the floor, covering the filthy stain and jarring Christine enough to blink up at him, at that twisted, angry face: "turn over. Get on your stomach." She shook her head and dug her fingernails into the sheets. " _Fine_ ," Erik spat, kicking his discarded clothing aside. "Keep looking."

He pulled back her quilt and sheets with one long gesture, glancing over her thinly-veiled body, her still-exposed breast with an appraising eye, and said, in a voice that was no longer his own, "if you only understood the power you hold over me, Christine––"

She could not speak.

As he crawled atop the bed his long shirt shifted, gathering about his narrow hips; Christine gasped as the whole of his ready cock was revealed beneath the fabric, nestled between his testicles, hanging and bumping against his scarred thighs. Graceless with drink he settled himself overtop her, caging her body with his own; Christine could feel the hot weight of his genitals against her low belly, the sticky stain of his arousal as it dribbled onto her stomach and sluiced through the thin fabric of her chemise into her navel. The alcohol made her skull ache, she wanted to vomit. She just wanted to sleep––

"Erik, please let me sleep," she whispered, and he shook his head.

Her head spun; images swam behind her gaze, as frowning, she attempted to focus on the dark face looming above her own. It couldn't be Erik, her Angel, pushing the front of her chemise up about her breasts as he straddled her, exposing the naked thatch of her sparse pubis to his devouring stare.

"You are beautiful," he whispered, teasing his fingers over her cunt. His touch there was reverent, careful; Christine shivered as a powerful revulsion rose in her throat, hating the tingling awareness his cool tremulousness ignited there. "Forgive me, Christine––you are so beautiful––"

Eager fists groped at her chemise, manhandling her limp form as he tugged the remains of the bunched and wrinkled fabric past her shoulders, her head; as he flung the garment from the bed his eyes, like devil's eyes in his corpses face, swept over her nakedness, consuming her shrinking modesty in their black stare. When his hands closed again over her small breasts Christine gave a cry, prompted again to action; "Erik, no," she appealed to him, weakly, aching from his too-tight, fumbling grip. Still he ignored her, bringing his monster's face low to press his gnarled mouth to her throat, her jaw, her cheek, and whisper in her ear the most terrible words she could have imagined spoken in that enchanter's tongue:

"Stay still, Christine, my love, my sweet little girl.” He hissed. “There is no use in fighting me now. I promise it will all be over soon."

There was something of the animal in him as he glared down at her, too-sharp teeth gnashing in his horrifying head, narrow chest rising and falling with every rasping breath, poised in his hanging dress shirt like a feral, snarling dog, like a starving predator about to consume its prey. As she stared up at him, too shocked to move, to resist, he huffed a ragged pant and shoved her naked thighs apart with a palm, groping at his dripping shaft in his fist, and soon, though Christine let out a shriek of mortified horror as he did so, of unbelievable, unimaginable pain, he forced his full length between her thighs, entering her with an appalling groan.

Could she have stopped it? She was too tired, too disordered to fight. To drunk, too stupid, too stupid, too _fucking_ stupid––

What would Raoul say if he knew? 

Two hands found the underside of her rear, just at the top of the thigh, as the Angel settled himself deep within; soon, gripping the fat there to aid his assault, he was driving himself, quickly and roughly inside her, as his expression twisted into a repulsive mask of agonized pleasure, and his mouth opened wider with his every thrust. "Oh, my God––" he panted, almost as if it had surprised him to find himself doing the foul thing, "oh, my God––Christine––"

Shocked, ashamed, Christine thrashed lamely beneath him. She grabbed at his wrists, uselessly clawing at his sallow skin. She swatted his chest, pounding above her with each labored, wine-stinking exhale. Her breath thundered from her open mouth as she whispered, senseless, "Erik, no––no––stop––"

In his face it was not the Angel she saw, nor even the monster; he was only a stranger, cruel, no different than any of the countless leering others parading the Paris streets with their repugnant commentaries and their offers of unwanted companionship in the night, as he grunted above her, "fuck, Christine, you feel so good––so tight––"

It was useless to try and fight him; the thing was already done and could never be un-done, and Christine was so tired. Now she whispered, "please," not knowing what she begged for or why, as she turned her head on the pillow and fixed her clouded stare to the solitary candle still flickering joyfully on her bedside table, as in the half light her once-holy Angel pounded his lust inside, his naked body slapping and sticking against her own with every brutal thrust.

"I know you wanted this, too, girl," he spat, eyes wide and rancorous in the twisted horror of that face as he stared down at her, his yellow, inhuman gaze shifting about her naked flesh and unable to directly meet her eye. His palm came down hard atop her dry lips, smothering her breath behind it. "Do not look at me like a dead thing! You goaded me, with that kiss! You are no innocent child, vixen! You _knew_ what I wanted––how badly I yearned––you denied me, _knowing_ I would take it from you, and you gave me the chance!"

There was no use to his muzzling of her; she never would have screamed. Instead, refusing to hear him, to respond with a groan or a wail, she closed her eyes tight and rode the hard rhythm of his body beating hers against the mattress, and every recoil, every return, as her breath moved too-quickly through her nostrils, and her snot bubbled and pooled against his crushing fingers.

He was staring at the wall behind her headboard, ugly face screwed up in concentration as if he studied the lopsided crucifix upon the wall. "God, Christine," he breathed, distracted, his beautiful voice disgusting, appalling, "Oh, my God––just like that––I'm nearly there––I'm going to fill you up––"

Something in it felt righteous, as if for her arrogance, her trusting naivete, Christine had deserved this end to this story. Anyone else would have foreseen it but she; and so, like a maiden in a fairytale who had made the wrong choice, she must pay the price for her foolishness. And here was her punishment: now Erik, her Angel, her only friend and the creature she clung to more than any other in this world, took her virtue in a hasty defilement atop a bed that was not even hers––his claiming laid bare by his corpse's face grunting and cursing and groaning above her own, as every muscle in her body screamed in silence at the assault. 

She hated herself. Disgust moved through her in nauseated waves; behind his crushing fingers she ground her teeth together to stop the rising vomit in her throat. She thought of Raoul, of his soft fingers brushing aside her hair, of his warm lips on her forehead and the back of her glove. She thought of her father, of his strong, warm arms holding her as she wept on his shoulder in the night, after waking from a terrible dream––

He had promised her an Angel.

And now that Angel took her, plunging himself into her body as if his sex were a sword; "fuck," he was groaning, his canorous throat making the most repulsive music Christine had ever heard, " _fuck_ , you fucking slut––"

She started to cry.

Because she knew what he was doing to her––she knew what name to call it. She knew he knew just as well as she, and yet, for all the horror, the brutality and pain, something about it felt exciting, his sex sloughing into her, wet and hot and destroying as her toes curled against the soft sheets; it terrified her, disgusted her, that her body could betray her so. Did she want this, as he claimed? Did she ask for this? She felt the pressure building in her like a storm, heard her own unconscious whine against his suffocating palm even as the tears fell, stinging and silent down her cheeks, felt her bare breasts swell and her nipples tighten as they shuddered against her chest with the repetitive force of his body entering hers. In her mind she blamed the alcohol, the late hour, his kind and simple words over dinner; and yet her revulsion could not be so easily reasoned with as her hips moved sensually against the mattress, and her body sought something against his she had no control over. 

Was she not the slut he claimed her to be? 

Would she ever be anything else again?

"Stop crying," he growled, staring. His expression was cruel, terrifying on his twisted face, though behind that, there was pain, and she despised him for daring to feel it, when her soul was being torn in two. "Damn it, Christine, control yourself. It cannot hurt as badly as all that. And I won't be long unless you distract me from it––I love you, remember that––"

Did he know, that as he fucked her there in that gently glowing bedroom, atop the soft sheets, that he was killing her just as surely as if he had used the rope? It was not only her virtue he stole, her purity; it was her trust, her ambition, skewered upon his shaft just as if it were her flesh. Before his final thrust there would be nothing left of the Christine Daaé she had been.

" _Please_ ," she whispered, though she knew he would not stop until he had whatever from her he was searching for, and her pleas felt pointless, empty, false: "please, don't––"

His fingers, clumsy, groped at her breasts, her throat, her unresisting, open mouth; groaning, he tangled a hand in her hair as she squeezed her eyes shut tight at the sting of it, and sliding his fingers from her mouth down to her throat––Christine panted and coughed as he released his hold––he crushed his lips again to hers. Now as he kissed her she let him without complaint; her hands fell slack against the mattress, her eyes open and unseeing as she counted out the seconds, wondering if it were possible to die of a kiss.

She wished that it were.

As he broke from her mouth, he whispered, hot and wet against her unresisting cheek, "oh, it's worth it, you pretty whore, my darling girl. It's worth it all. Your cunt is Heaven itself, and I am delivered––"

Afraid to cry out, as if she were undeserving of even her pain, Christine bit on her tongue as his body tore into hers, breaking her open, again and again, faster, faster: each thrust felt as if she were being rent apart, from her sex to her beating heart. For all the sick, repulsive sounds it made, splattering against her skin and his as his testicles smashed over and over against the fat of her ass, she thought he must also feel the blood, the slick, hot drip, where it collected at the root of her thigh; she wondered if it stained the sheets beneath them.

She would have to clean it in the morning before he could see.

There was a torture building, an agony, throbbing and pulsing in the core of her sex. With every brutal thrust, his ruinous length, slick and thick and horrible, rubbed at something that made her shiver and pant; "Erik," she whined, hating herself for the helplessly sensuous tone her betraying throat wantonly supplied,"Erik––oh, God––"

"I knew you would like this," he growled in answer, his monstrous face looming above, its sickening maw of a mouth open, panting, as hot, alchohol-soured breath stung her eyes and her nostrils. "Dirty little tramp, are you going to come?"

She gave no answer, trying not to meet his gaze, trying to stop the bile that burned in the back of her throat. He was sweating; water beaded on the translucent flesh of his brow, his blue blood drumming beneath, wetting the hairs that spilled from his neatly-combed skull to bob before his hellish face in greasy locks. Drool pooled in the corners of his gnarled lips; panting overtop her, he coughed, spattering her cheeks and lips with his foul spit.

She hated him, she loved him––she felt nothing at all. He was not Erik, not an Angel, not a friend; he was no one. No one pushed his body into hers, no one thrust his tongue inside her mouth. No one groaned her name against her flesh. No one raped her––

It was as if the world had ceased to spin on its axis, and she, alone, occupied the space of a dream; frozen in time, in the senseless horror of circumstance, she had escaped her body entirely, only to look down on herself from above. And from above, her claiming was almost beautiful, the Angel's bare ass red where it teased out from beneath his fine white dress shirt: sinuous, with purpose, Erik moved against her limp form, elegant in his defilement of her. Long, resplendent wings sprouted from the knobs of his spine, beneath his sweat-stained dress shirt, shuddering with the sheer force of their unfurling. Beneath them, his face wasn't rotten, but beautiful, as his holy voice whispered words of ecstatic love––and there against the mattress, naked, with her unblinking eyes fixed to the Heavens, like a dead thing, lifeless on the girlish bed––oh, God, oh, no, make it stop––

She closed her eyes, afraid to look at the lie any longer; when she opened them again it was Raoul's sweet face she saw smiling above her, and his body moving against hers. Was this not how it was meant to be, and who it was to be with? Beloved Raoul, in their marriage bed. And now she kissed him, kissed his sweet, usual, beautiful face, wrapping her trembling arms about his back, as an unfathomable ecstacy tore through her body in an unstoppable rush, and he swore to her, _I love you, Christine––I love you, so, so much––_

And the Angel dragged his hot mouth against her throat, groaning, "fuck, yes, you cunt. Come for me. Fuck me––"

"Stop," she whispered, returning to Earth, to the horror of hot flesh sticking against hers, to Erik's revolting carcass desecrating her own, "oh, stop, please––"

His tongue slid over her shivering flesh, his fingers searching, invading, taking. "You know I cannot, Christine," he grunted in her ear, flatly, as if he found her the stupidest girl in the world; and then with a groan he was rutting against her at an unbearable pace, her legs flailing about his sides and atop the mattress, her small breasts shuddering on her heaving chest. "Good girl, you can bear it. You like it. I saw you. You like it––"

"I don't," she whispered, though she never heard the words, "please, I don't––"

With a growl he groped for her hip, canting her body beneath his to drive himself deeper inside such that her joints ached with the bruising pressure of him; "oh, damn it, damn you, _bitch––"_ he roared, suddenly, and tore his body from within hers with an unbearable, revolting _pop_. 

Why did she not run? Freed beneath him, she did not attempt to close her legs or push him from her: instead she watched in patient silence as straddling her on knees and palm he took up his limp shaft to pound it viciously in a too-tight fist, feeling the ricocheting strike of his hanging sack as it beat against her inner thigh, flailingly attempting to return himself to hardness. His uneven, beady eyes squeezed shut tight as his mouth twisted in a gruesome scowl of concentration: he was simply masturbating against her now, grinding his teeth as his limp shaft hung useless between his straining thighs.

He looked up from his sex to cast Christine a look of manic rage and spat, forcing her shriek of terror, "God damn it, you useless cunt, _do something about it!"_

She was young, but not naive: She had heard of prostitutes being murdered on the midnight streets for nothing more than the crime of a client's own inability to keep his cock hard; instinctively, she knew what she must do. Numbly, Christine stuffed a hand between the crush of their naked, sweating flesh, to grope at his half-limp shaft as it hung wetly against her thigh. As soon as she had reached for him, Erik took up her hand in his, still pounding at his sex, and wrapping her fingers about his length such that they were working in tandem at the revolting task, he whined throatily, "yes, Christine––don't stop––"

But there was no change; between her fingers his cock still hung slack and fat and useless, even as Christine had begun to pant and ache with the effort. Erik's twisted expression had gone from ecstatic to studious to severe, and now he glared down at her wide-eyed, terrified concentration. "Is this how you fuck your dog, then?" he spat. He swat her clumsy fingers from his shaft and with a growl, took himself back up again.

"I don't know how––" she managed, stammering. "If you told me what––"

"You should suck me," he breathed, absently, his vigor increasing such that Christine thought such fervor must hurt him, "I need you to put your mouth on me––"

Without thinking, she kissed him, pressing her pursed lips against the hollow ravage of one cheek, then again against his jaw.

"No, Christine," he said, and now there was a sadness in his voice she couldn't understand the root of, "oh, no, sweet girl...I need you to take me inside your mouth. Take my––" He thumped her inner thigh with his flaccid shaft as if to avoid calling the sick thing by its name, and added, almost-apologetically, "but only for a moment––until I can––until I can finish it––" as if it made a difference.

"Oh," she whispered, understanding, "oh, no––"

But he breathed, "please, just do as I say," as straddling her and rising to his knees, he shuffled her to sit beneath him, and with a last glance in her searching eyes, he took her by the hair clinging to the base of her neck, and bent her forward to the soft, hanging flesh between his thighs. 

Gripping her at the chin, he directed his length between her lips. "Suck," he breathed, as the soft, fat flesh filled her cheeks, "no teeth." 

On his shaft she tasted her sex, the sour sweetness she had smelled on herself ever since she became a woman, the bitter metallic of her own blood on his skin. The stink of his sweat and shit teased at her nostrils as his sticky curls pushed into her nose––

"Oh, fuck––" he growled, "oh, you really are a whore, aren't you––use your tongue––yes, there, just like that––"

She gagged on his length as he thrust himself deeper into her convulsing throat. One pump, two, with his fingernails dug into the sides of her face; "shit, I'm going to come––" and then he tore her from him as she sobbed and dry retched into her chest. When she met his wide-eyed, yellow stare, his caseous skin blurred by the water glassing her gaze, his expression became suddenly bitter, cruel; Christine gave a sharp cry when his palm met her cheek, just before he pushed her again onto her back amid the tangled blankets, and climbed atop her, again the beast.

"Tell me you like it, whore," he hissed, clumsily stuffing his half-hard, dripping shaft into the aching gash between her spread thighs with one sweating hand. "Damn you, look at me and tell me this is what you wanted!"

She wanted it to be over. She wanted it to stop. "I like it," she whispered, and wanted to die.

But her words appeared to have the desired effect upon him, as he pressed his wet mouth to her forehead and whispered throatily, once more thumping his hips into hers, "good girl, good girl––"

"I like it," she repeated mindlessly, "I like it."

"Yes, I know," ––again his lips met her forehead, strangely, unbearably tender–– "oh, only a moment, now, my love–– _fuck_ ––only a moment more––" and then he gave a shuddering, repulsive groan, groping for her hip to shift her body against his; his pace was slowing, as he thrust against her slower, deeper, pinching his fingers into her fat, moaning with half-closed eyes, "yes, that's right, that's good, that's so good––"

And then he met her eye again and spat suddenly, "damn you, turn your head," as he pushed her cheek into her pillow by the force of his fingers. Christine mumbled a breathy cry into his wet and crushing grip; his palm tightened over her lips.

"Don't keep giving me that look," he hissed, "stupid, foolish girl. You've done this to yourself! Why would you drink with me? Damn you, why are you _here?_ " Now his rasping speech strained with witheld emotion; for the first time Christine believed that he hated her, for all the disgust which dripped from his ragged voice. His Angel's voice, that once called to her as if from Heaven above, embracing her in blindly-loving arms, "why would you trust in me to make this choice? Surely you know that I cannot have––that what I wanted––oh, damn you, Christine. Damn you, you miserable cunt–– _just stop fucking crying!_ " 

But she could not.

His hips beat into hers in a single brutal, aching thrust, almost like a punishment, like what she had seen him do to his own arm only moments ago. Another, deeper and more violent than the last, a groan, and then: "this is your fault. All of this–– _fuck_ ––this is all your fault!" He had released her mouth for a mad instant to slap her again across the cheeks and chin; though the monsters face above her contorted into an abhorrent mask of shock and misery at the sight of her wincing into his strike, almost as if he hadn't intended to hit her all, he quickly covered her mouth again, slamming his fist over her panting lips: now, hot, salted water slid beneath his fingers to trickle into the corners of her slack mouth. Opening her eyes, she realized he was crying too, as more tears, an ocean of them, poured down his abhorrence of a face to splatter against her heated, stinging skin. In another union, he was melding his pain into hers: even her suffering was no longer her own, as the Angel claimed it for himself.

Sluggishly meeting his eye, Christine whispered into the fat of his biting fingers, "Angel, I trusted you––"

"And so you have ruined _everything! "_ he roared, and then he was sobbing against her, his mouth open wide in a shuddering cry. His climax came fast and brutal; crushing her face to the mattress by the force of his hand he cried out her name, his body spasming against hers. With a final groan he finished inside her, as Christine gave a strangled cry into his hold of shock, relief; as if the sound had forced him to remember the girl pinned beneath him, Erik fixed upon her a look of terror and drew his fingers up into a tight fist.

"Oh, no," he breathed, panting, meeting her stare beneath his, "oh, no, no––oh, Christine––"

Free of his crushing fingers atop her lips, she coughed, sucking in air through her open mouth. Soon her coughing turned to ragged, rasping sobs; staring, silent, Erik watched her cry, shifting about on his palms to allow her to slide out from beneath him. She wanted to fling herself from the bed, to tear through the still-open bedroom door, that horrid, gaudy living room, and drown herself in the underground lake; and yet her body ached too much for movement, and her head spun, so wincing slightly as his weight again pressed upon her, she said nothing when Erik curled his body over hers, and placed his disgusting head between her breasts.

He thumbed her nipple, idly; his lips slid over her flesh, whispering against her sweating skin–– _my poor, darling girl, my sweet, lovely girl––_ Christine wanted to shove her fingers inside his monster's mouth and tear out his forked tongue. Hot, sticky fluid coated the inside of her thighs, soaking the sheets beneath her numb flesh and dripping into the cleft of her rear; whenever she shifted, even slightly, it was as if the torrent began anew, as the foul thing he had filled her with spilled out again and again, more and more, staining her such that she would never escape the filth of it. In silence, his wormy fingers sampled all of her, touching and taking even more as a painful shuddering built in her spine, setting her skin to clammy goose flesh; sighing, Erik eased his sticky palm into the hollow of her belly and about the curve of her hip.

When two fingers slid into the sticky mess between her thighs she whimpered against him, mindlessly digging her nails into his bicep––"hush, Christine," he soothed her, "hush, sweet girl. I only want to see––"; and then the invasion was over and her body fell slack against his, as he pulled a hand from beneath the sheets to witness his crime on his fingertips.

There was blood on his fingers, marbled with creamy milk-white. Blood, staining the back of his hand as it dripped over his knuckles. Blood from a wound that could never heal.

He wiped off her virtue on the sheets.

"You are a good girl, Christine," he whispered, his flaccid sex still pulsating wetly against her inner thigh, "a very good girl. You mustn't cry any longer… Erik is sorry… Erik will take care of you… "

He was still crying, if anything, with only more ardency than before; silent, ugly tears spilled over his ruined cheeks, pooling and clinging in the rot, the cavities and ruts, collecting in the corners of his twisted lips. Once, forever ago, he had gripped her hands and forced them to his face, digging her fingernails into his rotten skin until the flesh caught and tore, and blood dripped down her shaking fingers. The scars of that assault still festered on his cheeks.

Her own scars could not be so easily seen.

"Next time, it will be easier," he promised, curling his revolting body close. He brushed the pad of his thumb across her cheek, wiping away a tear as it fell. "Please don't cry," he repeated, "it is done, Christine. I cannot take it back." He kissed her wet chin, her crying eyes and the corners of her mouth. "You are a very brave girl," he whispered, as Christine gave a soft, whimpering sigh, "you have done so well…"

He brought his mouth to hers, crushing her into the cushions with the force of his panting kiss, his repulsive desperation––his painful need for forgiveness––as Christine pressed her eyelids tightly shut and dug her fingers into his sides. Against her body she felt the change, the unmistakable hardness of his returned arousal, pressing like a weight of lead atop her thigh; she heard the raggedness return to his hot breath, as he rocked his body close, and his kiss became no longer gentle, no longer kind, but hungry, carnal, cruel––

"I want to go home," she whispered, as he broke from her lips on a wet inhale, and his fingertips dug at her rear, "please take me home––"

"My love, you are home," he breathed, "now try to sleep."

And guiding himself again inside her, he swallowed her words with his tongue in her mouth.

* * *

_**A/N:** _ _It's ok if you found this hot. It is hot! That is the purpose of fantasy. Please don't allow negative comments to let yourself feel different. Just because you find a topic interesting, exciting, erotic, taboo––does not mean you think its "ok". You are not what you read, write, or even think about, and anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is wrong. Let no one shame you for fantasy._

_It's ok if you found this cathartic, or upsetting. It is! Every reader is different, and all of our experiences shape our interpretation of the media we consume. If you think a story with these tags will be triggering or will make you upset, please do not read it. The last thing I want to do with my writing is hurt anyone._

_But whatever you do, remember that you alone are in charge of your own experience of media. No one forced you to read this. You made that choice, and you are responsible for it, not me as the writer. I do tend to delete most negative comments, (unless I find them amusing) especially if it is clear that the commenter hasn't actually read or is insulting me or my readers, but by all means say your piece, if doing so will spark joy._

_For everyone else, **t hank you for reading! Please leave a review.** (I will answer every one, even if I'm a bit slow about it!) I love ya'll!! _

_Until next time,_

_Cat_

**_About the title:_** _The French_ " _À la Nôtre", literally, "to ours", is a riff on "À vôtre santé" (to your health), or, in English, "cheers."_


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